News and Politics | December 10, 2012 | 5 comments

US military facing fresh questions over targeting of children in Afghanistan

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/07/us-military-targeting-strategy-afghanistan

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Radical_Centrist
The US military is facing fresh questions over its targeting policy in Afghanistan after a senior army officer suggested that troops were on the lookout for "children with potential hostile intent".

In comments which legal experts and campaigners described as "deeply troubling", army Lt Col Marion Carrington told the Marine Corp Times that children, as well as "military-age males", had been identified as a potential threat because some were being used by the Taliban to assist in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces.

"It kind of opens our aperture," said Carrington, whose unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was assisting the Afghan police. "In addition to looking for military-age males, it's looking for children with potential hostile intent."

In the article, headlined "Some Afghan kids aren't bystanders", Carrington referred to a case this year in which the Afghan national police in Kandahar province said they found children helping insurgents by carrying soda bottles full of potassium chlorate.

The piece also quoted an unnamed marine corps official who questioned the "innocence" of Afghan children, particularly three who were killed in a US rocket strike in October. Last month, the New York Times quoted local officials who said Borjan, 12, Sardar Wali, 10, and Khan Bibi, eight, from Helmand's Nawa district had been killed while gathering dung for fuel.

However, the US official claimed that, before they called for the strike on suspected insurgents planting improvised explosive devices, marines had seen the children digging a hole in a dirt road and that "the Taliban may have recruited the children to carry out the mission".

Full Story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/07/us-military-targeting-strategy-afgha...
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    News and Politics
  2. tags:
    Iraq,  Children,  Afghanistan,  War Crimes,  1 more
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5 comments // US military facing fresh questions over targeting of children in Afghanistan

  • artemis6
  • artemis6
  • DS53
    • 0
      DS53  

    • Which is more surprising? That the Taliban uses innocents to help carry out their death-missions...OR...That U.S. Leftists believe that our military's recognition of this tactic is somehow evil?

    • 5 months ago
  • Varex_Sythe
    • +1
      Varex_Sythe  
    • DS53:

      The problem isn't the recognition of the tactic, the problem, if one really arises, is what measures are taken to make the tactic ineffective?

      Shooting any and all children who run up to soldiers because they fear that said children might have an IED on them is not a good knee jerk reaction to such a problem.

    • 5 months ago
  • DS53
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